This blog is a great opportunity to share ideas about ways to
transform schooling as we know it, to help all students realise their
talents, passions and dreams. Be great to hear from anyone out there! Feel free to add a comment to Bruce's Blog and enter e-mail to receive postings

‘The Apostrophe Police are everywhere. Not only do they want you to
get apostrophes in what they think are the right places, they are also ready to
mock you if you get it wrong. The general message is that the rules for apostrophes
are very easy, and only a fool could make a mistake.’

‘For example, school children as young as 8-years-old are forced to
take a battery of standardized tests in public schools. Would educators
prescribe such assessments if it were up to them? Would parents demand children
be treated this way if they were consulted? Or is this just a corporate scam
perpetrated by our government for the sole benefit of a particular industry
that funnels a portion of the profits to our lawmakers as political donations?’

The one question to ask yourself the next time you’re facing a
difficult problem

Can you adapt this for your classroom?

‘A lot of us have trouble dealing with conflict. But there’s an
effective strategy for solving problems at work and at home. The only downside?
It makes you sound a bit like a toddler on a road trip. The secret to resolving
conflict, as first outlined by former Toyota executive Taiichi Ohno, is to “ask
why five times.” The idea is that by continuously asking “why,” you’ll
eventually arrive at a root cause and learn from the problem—the better to
avoid repeating unproductive or ignorant behavior.’

‘As Science of Us has previously reported, one analysis found that
preschoolers ask an average of 76 questions per hour. That’s a lot of why,
especially when you consider the fact that most of the time, they don’t even
care much about the explanation.

‘Why School?-
What are the conditions for optimal, sticky learning? What are we doing in
school that can not be Khanified?- What do students need to learn in school
when they can learn so much without us? What are the skills that our students
need now to succeed?Where do we start?I used to think I knew the answers to
those questions. I am not sure (maybe a bit uncertain) as to what the future
holds for our concept of “education.”’

School doubles
in size after curriculum change brings learning into 21st century

Innovative teaching at Patea Area School

‘A school has doubled in size since
changing its curriculum to a utopia-like educational system. Patea Area
School's role now sits at 154 pupils since a "massive overhaul"
trialled last year appealed to a large number of people. School principalNicola Ngarewa said
the school now "focuses on preparing children for the 21st century,
beyond the school gates”.’

‘If there's a pot of gold at the end of
the collaborative teaching rainbow, Dave* thinks it's a small one. He's
struggled with 50-child classrooms at his Christchurch primary school over
the past few years and says he's not the only one, with at least half his
colleagues exhausted by what's supposed to be the future of education. Endless
collaboration between teachers sharing the spaces has distracted them from
teaching pupils, who are in turn distracted by each other. Learning outcomes
have gone down, not up, but no one wants to discuss the elephant in the room,
he says.’

‘Science presenter and particle physicist
Professor Brian Cox has called for testing in schools to be minimised – and
only used when the positive benefits can be proven.There has been concern that
too much focus on maths and English – particularly in Year 6 in the run-up to
Sats – can narrow the curriculum, leaving less time for other subjects.’

‘Scholars have identified two thinking
process: convergent thinking and divergent thinking. Education focuses on
convergent thinking — emphasizes on finding definite, absolute answers. But in
reality, we actually need divergent thinking more, which is the ability to find
more than one way to solve problems, and it is essential to creativity.’

‘In preparing students for the world
outside school, what skills are important to learn. Simply defined, “deeper
learning” is the “process of learning for transfer,” meaning it allows a
student to take what’s learned in one situation and apply it to another.’

The balance between consistency and
creativity.
‘For three days the Gisborne principals visited selected schools in
Taranaki. Their task was to look for each schools 'cc' rating: consistency and
conversely creativity across classrooms. Consistency because this indicates
shared language of expectations and creativity, for without celebrating each
teacher and child's creativity, it all can become mediocre.The balance between
the two is vital.’

‘Developing a 'personalised learning'
approach, tailoring learning to the needs of each students ( as against the
'one size fits all'), is not as easy as it sounds. In the real world, outside
of school, people make use of whatever ways of learning that do the job. For
many such people school learning is of little use to them.’